#optimization is boring

[lutethebodies]

LTB Worldbuilding Wednesdays: Intro/How I Got Here

When I spun up this blog my goal was simple: a place to dump screenshots of my Tavs and other BG3-related brainrot. My personal site's blog wasn't a good place for it, since I'm a freelancer and it's gotta have at least some concessions to "professionalism," so here we are. But it feels a bit too aloof to do these "Tav Tuesdays" posts chock-full with names and places unfamiliar to 99.9999% of readers here, so "LTB Worldbuilding Wednesdays" have arrived.

They won't be convoluted or super lore-dumpy, but they will provide context for my characters, who've been my 5e mainstays for years—with lives and stories and whatnot—before I imported them into BG3 and forced tadpoles in their heads. For every subsequent post in this series, I'll try to distill the TL;DR of a place or faction or whatever—but only enough for it to be relevant to a given Tav's story, because (again) I don't want to drown a reader in lore (unless that's your thing, which is totally fine and I'm down for asks about that).

I'm also in the middle of churning out a second homebrew fantasy atlas (more on the first one below the fold), so ideally these posts will keep me in the mindset of getting that work done instead of running yet another BG3 playthrough. Wednesdays are the weekly game night for my tabletop 5e group, so it's already a good day to be in worldbuilding-brain.

While it's been extremely fun and fulfilling to do over the past five years, I won't claim that it's the right way or only way to worldbuild, because that's silly given the wealth of other resources out there and the galaxy of creativity we're all capable of. It's worked for me, though, so it's not nothing. Here's a quick rundown of how I got here, with "here" being "a sufficiently fleshed out campaign setting with plenty of room to grow":

Creating a Unique Map Style

I'm a huge map nerd, and have reached a point in my life/career where I get to do freelance map design as a part-time job. I'm shaking off the aesthetic snobberies I learned as a graphic designer, because snobbery is too close to gatekeeping, but I'm still enough of a snob about map style to want my own stuff to be unique. In a sea of samey-looking hand-drawn-hobbit-maps, I wanted my homebrew world to stand out, so here's how I did that:

Creating "Homeworlds" - a brief process piece about my April 2019 digital map illustration project.

Creating "The Game Board" - process and background for my 2019 found-texture fictional map project.

Creating "Found Islands" - a smaller 2021 side-project that sorta refined that found-texture style.

Creating Compelling Names

Once I had a unique visual style, I had to populate the world (or at least start to, one region or place at a time), which required some decisions about toponymy for names of places, people, and in-world history/lore, because pretty world maps can still feel boring without stories of who lives there:

What’s in a Name? Fictional Toponymy for Fantasy Maps - process piece for how I developed naming conventions.

Custom Fantasy Map Illustration - portfolio page for my found-texture digital map work.

The Game Board, 2022 Version - One result of all this was a big fat map poster I'm still proud of.

Creating a Homebrew Fantasy Atlas

A map can only show the names, though—it can't tell the stories to a compelling level of detail—so here's where I got to combine lots of my different personal and professional interests and experience: my own fantasy gazetteer. I made all the maps (aforementioned map nerd), I did all the design work (two decades of experience in publication layout), I created/edited all the iconography/imagery (two decades in design plus two more before that as a generally creative person), and I composed/compiled all the lore (I have an English BA and I dabbled in journalism for a few years). Et voila: "The Nua Gazetteer, Vol. 1" was born.

The Nua Gazetteer, Volume 1: Lands and Lore of Aviridia - portfolio page for the main gazetteer project.

The Nua Gazetteer: Announcement - kickoff/kick in the pants for me to get going on this beast.

The Nua Gazetteer: Production Notes - process and influences on the project as a whole.

The Nua Gazetteer: Release Notes - posts for the digital (2022) and print (2023) gazetteer release.

And that's not even getting into the recording project I did for seven of my bard's songs. Maybe I'll do, like, a brief "Music Monday" series. None of this will ever have the juice of my one runaway Minthara post, but whatever. If it's compelling for me (a brain-rotted lore-bard), it won't be bullshit for you. Thanks for reading all the way to the end!

[squidsploitation]

is the recoil of my rifle

[tribow]

Tell me you don't play indie games without telling me you don't play indie games.

[hawnks]

A Syllabus For Survival:

All About Love: New Visions, Bell Hooks

Psalm for the Wild Built, Becky Chambers

The Book of Delights, Ross Gay

Life on Mars, Tracy K. Smith

Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke

Dogfish, Mary Oliver

Ode to Friendship, Noor Hindi

VI Wisdom: The Voice of God, Mary Karr

The World, Neil Hillborn

[onewingedangels]

[taylorb6312]

the tridisaster trio survived origin and you can pry that shit from my cold dead hands

“oh but joshua said that he couldnt sense bahamut” bahamut was knocked out by ultima’s attack. we never see dion’s dead body- he has also survived falling from much greater heights

“We watched joshua die” and clive healed his wounds. they never confirmed to what extent

and clive literally woke up on the beach.

[lienwyn]

I haven't drawn using regular graphite in literal years so I decided to do a bit of a warm-up to see if I still remember how. Turns out I do!

[scopophobia-polaris]

first female loz director and the gerudo seem to be written fine enough? wow... there ain't no way I thought we were in the worst timeline after totk

Yeah got through the main quest with the gerudo, it wasn't painful! It wasn't even bad! Still got them outfits but for the most part it was like oh cool!

I would say a lot of that oh cool is from the fact they didn't do a lot to even fuck it up to begin with, I'm gonna be real with yall this game is NOT worth $60USD

Edit: lemme say one thing, you know when people were being like damn totk story wasn't dark or mature at all why was this compared to Majora's mask again? And then all the zeldatwt people came out and said zelda is just a kid series domt expect good writing uH

This one feels like a kid's game. That ain't to say it's terrible I would say, hell I'm not far in it if I get something crazy that's like OH FUCK I'll reblog this post and say something but uh.....game for babies I'm gonna be shocked if anyone struggles with any puzzles cuz you CAN CHEESE THEM EASY ITS 🫢🤭

EDIT EDIT: I SWEAR IM NOT EVEN TRYING TO BE A DOWNER..... @ezlo-x HAS BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME IVE BEEN PLAYING....THEY KNOW I HAVENT BEEN A PARTY POOPER.....

[karnalesbian]

Ok as long as I'm also begging God to shape games in my favorite series [plural] in a specific way. Please for the love of fuck let the next fire emblem game (not counting the genealogy remake if that is indeed happening. the next original one whenever that is) PLEASE take notes from Engage's gameplay and not 3H's

please I'm fucking begging Engage had the best gameplay the series has seen in forever I don't care what they do with the story and supports and everything but if they choose to make the gameplay more like 3H than engage just because 3H sold well I WILL find out who made that decision, break into their house and decapitate myself in front of them while their family tries to eat breakfast

[windupaidoneus]

really funny to me that ppl perceive emets solus body at like 60s. he looks blatantly younger than varis or like, the same age. varis is 46

[claire-starsword]

local idiot feels brief moment of joy finding legendary pokemon in rom hack before being painfully reminded of how soulsucking the capture mechanics of this series are

[acfan120]

So I finally got the last achievement in Stardew (again), and the last hat matches Tumble's outfit perfectly. Even moreso because she used to have a Blue Bow/Ribbon for her design.

It's funny how that lined up.

[beeapothecary]

Finally back in the lab and I’m so mad at myself for not getting my pipette tip organizer done already. It’s so tedious :(

I was gone for a little more than a week so there’s just piles of BOXES needing TIPS and AUTOCLAVING

[autisticlilith]

you make a compelling argument...

[tswwwit]

Wait, aww does dipper sometimes cook for bill? (Well saying making spicy instant noodles is cooking is a little far fetched but still)

I mean, sometimes!

In the Familiar AU, Dipper and Mabel basically grew up with Stan - and experienced the cooking skills thereof. When faced with choosing a life of glitter in his digestive tract, or earnest but burnt waffles, Dipper figured he might as well learn to cook. He's not winning any culinary awards or anything, but he can follow a recipe and make a decent pasta dish.

Besides. The alternative to Dipper cooking for Bill - is Bill cooking for Dipper. And since Bill's idea of delicacies involve terms like 'unholy abomination', 'unbearably spicy', or 'still squirming', Dipper's more likely than not to shove him out of the kitchen.

They mostly get lot of takeout.

[warningsine]

That's what you said about Mariana, Ms. Servin, and yet here you are!